Having covered the events of 9/11 and 6 of the last 7 memorials, this year was very different. In the past I had a very hard time covering these memorials emotionally. It was tough seeing these people grieving the loss of loved ones and having, not even through six degrees of separation, known anyone that passed away hard to grasp. But year after year we have gone down to the site to mark the anniversary of one of the worst attacks on American soil in history.

This year it seemed different. For me, it seemed not as emotional as the years past. With less exceptions people seemed to be getting on with their lives to a certain extent. I also noticed how the kids of the victims are getting older - not nearly as many babies and younger children. Seven years have passed and the children are growing older. I also think that the presidential candidates visiting the site took some of the focus away from the families’ and loved ones’ day of mourning. It became a separate story to cover other than the anniversary.

When I first began making photographs, I began using color and slide film. Working with film was always a challenge, but one could expose the film or chrome differently to achieve a desired affect. I have always been fascinated by the way a camera can record color.

The art of black and white photography is being able to play with tonality and contrast. Some photographers are able to process a scene in black and white. It’s such an art, and there is such beauty in black and white imagery. I love color though, by underexposing just a fraction I feel like a photographer is able to saturate the colors a bit. Shadows can create a mood. Underexposing also creates contrast.

There is a tonal range in an image. Cameras record light differently than we see it, our eyes are able to process more of a range of light than a camera can, meaning we are able to see the detail in shadows. I love to look around and see how the light is falling on a particular scene. I’ll observe the scene, look for the most interesting light, or the most fascinating subjects, or something different.

As a news photographer, we have an obligation to tell the story as we see it in front of us. Sometimes we are bound to the news value rather than an aesthetic, but such is the business of photojournalism, we are there to record a scene and to show history as it’s being made. But there are other moments. In many situations, I feel that scenes are recorded and the significance is narrowed down to a frame or two that are supposed to represent exactly what happened.

What is the significance of a scene? What was the moment that defined an event?

But there are myriad moments that define an event.

The media at times dictates news rather than recording it, but all around there are moments happening that define it as much as anything else. Finding those moments is easy, it’s recording them in a way that somehow reflects their emotional significance that provides more of a challenge. Through the art of photography, we are able to capture those moments in a way that reflects the way we see them. We are thinking and feeling, and our cameras are there to record that, our presence in a scene, how we process everything that is going on around us. I care about how that looks, as a photographer we are interested in the aesthetic, but the ultimate goal is to make the viewer feel what it was like to be there, or feel something about the scene. If my images are able to capture that, then I have done my job.

I was lucky enough to be able to cover the Democratic National Convention, and being able to see history in the making and at the same time record it was an amazing experience.

August 29, 2008 was a strange day. As I covered commemorations for the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the tension in the air was palpable. Hurricane Gustav was coming and decisions had to be made. Do we stay or do we go? I was staying.

In 2005, Reuters assigned me to cover Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. After seeing first hand the scope of the storm’s devastation, I decided to move back to New Orleans. I then began to focus my work completely on documenting the city’s recovery. In the months following Katrina, there was a pioneering spirit among the few living in the city, and I became personally involved in the story. Last year, I bought a home here.

As Gustav approached, I knew I couldn’t stand to be outside New Orleans as this new chapter was unfolding. By Saturday, officials were making dire predictions about the probable impact on the city, and I got a little worried. After shooting pictures of resident evacuating early Sunday, I spent the afternoon securing my house and belongings. Although I live in the Bywater, an area that did not flood in Katrina, I needed to take a few precautions. I put my desktop computer, external drives and other valuables on the highest shelves in my house. I planned to work completely out of my rental car, with a laptop, inverter and portable batteries. I placed my duplicate drives (which should have been shipped to a safe city) into an ice chest and brought them to the Chimes Bed and Breakfast in Uptown, where most of Reuters’ staff was housed. They have three stories and didn’t flood in Katrina either. I stayed for dinner, went home and slept easier after hearing Gustav’s punch was weakening. I was awoken by storm gusts and my power was out.

I live two blocks from Inner Harbor Navigational Canal. We call it the Industrial Canal and its role in the Katrina nightmare is notorious. My first stop was the east bank of the canal, where the breech in the Lower Ninth Ward occurred in Katrina. After climbing the floodwall, I became a bit concerned to see water already two to three feet from the top. I drove around the neighborhood, shooting a bit, and then headed over the Claiborne Bridge. I stopped at the top of the bridge for a wide view. That’s when I saw waves cresting over the top of the floodwall onto the east bank of the canal, my side. I photographed the scene, called correspondent Tim Gaynor, and went to a coffee house in my neighborhood with power to file the pictures.

When I returned to the bridge after filing, news crews were crowding it, probably tipped by their desks after seeing Reuters pictures of the situation on several news websites. I was glad they were. I wanted everyone to see the impending danger. Water was now accumulating at the foot of the bridge. Not a good sign. I photographed National Guardsmen arriving on the scene of the flooding, and went back to the top of the bridge. The waves had gotten stronger. It was amazing to watch the force of the water push against the concrete walls and try to imagine the incredible pressure on them. How could they possibly hold? Every thing I owned was just beyond those walls. They had to hold. They did, at Category 3. We need to build higher, stronger walls because other, stronger storms are sure to come.

In the days since Gustav, I have photographed the clean up and people returning to the city. I haven’t had to go far from my neighborhood to find pictures. My house is the only one on the street without electricity, so it is powered at night with a generator. But it’s there. So is my stuff. Things are feeling a little less dangerous, for now.

Every year since he took office in 2001, President George W. Bush has taken a summer vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, a small town that has come to identify itself as the “Western White House.” This year was different, though. Only once during his 13-day vacation in Crawford did Bush appear before the news media and only once did he use Texas as a base to make a daytrip. The president was rarely seen, even though his name and face is everywhere in town. Crawford brimmed with White House personnel, Secret Service agents and members of the media even as Bush remained out of sight.

It made me think, what will it be like for Crawford when Bush leaves office next year and life returns to some sense of normal?

I took the opportunity to explore the town a little bit, as it was only my second visit. I did, in fact, find images of the president everywhere — in life-sized cardboard cutouts, hot sauce bottles, coasters, mugs and glasses. There were even bobble head dolls, paper dolls and action figures. I found a town that was very proud to have Bush as their neighbor, but a little tired of the traveling circus that comes with him. I was told that the mayor never gives interviews and the manager of the local coffee shop didn’t want to talk to me either.

Thankfully, the owner of a local souvenir shop was happy to chat about her town and her famous neighbor. Interestingly, she hoped Bush may consider coaching a local baseball team after he leaves the Oval Office. For me, the sentiment was a nice little surprise and a measure of just how much affection and even accessibility the people of Crawford feel for a man who’s often there, but not really there.

To view the audio slideshow, click here.

With the hopes of seeing a slice of Americana and a desire to get back to the Big Easy, I thought what better way to get to see the country than take a Greyhound bus. My trip, which originated at Port Authority in New York City and was to end in New Orleans, covered 1,400 miles, 15 scheduled stops and 4 bus changes.
As hoped I met some really interesting characters along the way : A man who claims to have staged a pre-meditated suicide in hopes of claiming a new identity, a pastor who has fathered 13 children, a kid who hiked the whole Appalachian trail by himself, a marine who claimed to have not been home for 6 years and was returning to New Orleans via Boston to see his six-year-old daughter for the first time and his wife, amongst many other people who if I dared to approach I’m sure had their own stories to tell.

I left Port Authority at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday (8/12) and arrived some 31 hours later on time in New Orleans at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday (8/13). Along the way we made a few meal stops as they were called and I have to admit I see why America has an obesity problem. The only food options at these stops were McDonald’s or random other stops that had the options of Fried Chicken with or without fries. Unless you were packing your own meals, healthy options were few and far between.

Sleep was tough. The first bus I was on was pretty comfy, however, when we switched to a Carolina Tramways bus chartered by Greyhound it was far from comfortable. A school chair had more cushion that these seats and unfortunately it was the longest non-stop leg of the trip. Once in Atlanta, we changed buses to what felt like a Rolls Royce compared to tha old bus and I was able to get my only 3 hours of sleep along the way.
Seeing the night come and go was great and I really knew I was in the south when we stopped in Opelica, Alabama for a meal and ordered some good ‘ole salt cured bacon, grits and sweet tea. Getting close to New Orleans I chatted with a bus driver and reminisced about Katrina. She was telling me how she drove Greyhound buses to evacuate the people days after the storm and I remembered being on one of those flooded overpasses myself watching these people finally being taken out of that dire situation.

Arriving in New Orleans I was glad to be off the bus, however, I felt a little sad that my visual journey of 30 some hours had come to an end. That feeling left quickly after getting dinner at my favorite oyster joint and falling to sleep on a nice bed for 12 hours.

View a slideshow of Shannon’s trip here.

A traditional Masaai dance is seen through the eyes of photographer Antony Njuguna.

[ http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/reuters42/2008/08/11/KOROL_Rattlesnakes_publish_to_web/index.html ]

In this arid river valley in southeastern Alberta, Adam Martinson is trying to find out why rattlesnakes cross the road.

Martinson, a University of Calgary student working on a Masters degree has come to Dinosaur Provincial Park, listed as a United Nations World Heritage site, to study why snakes slither onto — and too frequently die on — the asphalt blacktop of the region’s roads.

Photographer Todd Korol looks into the fate of rattlesnakes on Canadian roads.

Brian Snyder takes us behind the scenes of the Circus Smirkus camp in Vermont.

Let me explain - because of course I don’t enjoy the misfortune of others.

In some respects the advent of new technology has been a backward step for photographers, for the simple reason that it is so boring and dull to look at. Politicians, and company results press conferences, have always presented a challenge to the creative photographer because they are often visually unexciting. But trying to find a hint of expression, when the financial markets head south these days, is a nightmare, because the computer screen has taken over the traditional trading floor.

Which is why it was such a pleasure to see Brendan McDermid’s photographs last week, of the floors of the New York Stock Exchange and the New York Mercantile Exchange, where traditional looking traders displayed traditional reactions, in a traditional setting.

Yes, new technology does have some advantages. No, there is no pleasure in seeing financial markets crash. But it’s just great to see a financial story illustrated with genuine emotion, and something that we, as human beings, can identify with.

Above - Traders work in the Oil Futures pit at the New York Mercantile Exchange in New York

Above - A trader works in the Oil Futures pit at the New York Mercantile Exchange in New York

Above - Traders work in the Oil Futures pit at the New York Mercantile Exchange in New York

A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange

[ http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/reuters42/2008/06/Jorge/resized%20publish_to_web/index.html ]